Biography

Maria Paola Buonaparte, the sixth child of Letizia Ramolino and Carlo Buonaparte, Corsica's representative to the court of King Louis XVI of France, was born on 20 October 1780 in Ajaccio, Corsica. She was popularly known as "Paoletta", and her family soon took a French spelling of their surname, Bonaparte. Little is known about her childhood, bar the fact that she received no formal education. Following Carlo's death in 1785, the family were plunged into poverty.

Her brother Lucien Bonaparte made seditious comments at the local Jacobin chapter in the summer of 1793, forcing the family to flee to the mainland for their lives. It was there on the mainland that she became known as "Paulette". The earnings the Bonapartes heretofore extracted from their vineyards and other holdings on Corsica were interrupted by the English occupation.